Category: Taigu Ryokan

1.
Packing my bags again. I made this trip months before the previous one. C. told me this should be the last time I leave for awhile, but all I can think of is that I should go away more often, and for longer amounts of time.

2.
The last week has been all about unpacking, but it was mostly what’s inside my head. My bags remain unkempt, as if in a perpetual state of moving.

3.
I almost said, I don’t belong here anymore, although I know I still have a place. And yet it doesn’t feel the same. If leaving truly changes you, then how dangerous it is—to leave home, but also to come back.

Caged BirdsTaigu Ryokan
Translated by John Stevens

Time and again
You, too,
Must long for
Your old nest
Deep in the mountain.

1.
Here now. It’s past three in the morning and I am exhausted and need sleep but my mind is racing racing racing. Were we ever this lucky and unaware of it? How the world turns, how the universe breathes.

2.
S. and I just talking all night. From one country to the next. One gate to the next. One airport to the next. All the choices I made perhaps led to this moment: the lampposts revealing the bridge bit by bit, myself not really knowing where we’re going, but we’re going nonetheless.

3.
Here now. Perhaps that is enough.

Yes, I’m Truly A DunceTaigu Ryokan

Yes, I’m truly a dunce
Living among trees and plants.
Please don’t question me about illusion and enlightenment —
This old fellow just likes to smile to himself.
I wade across streams with bony legs,
And carry a bag about in fine spring weather.
That’s my life,
And the world owes me nothing.